Today I am blogging in solidarity with…

Cat, who was dragged to the dole office on the Saturday of the Luton anti-EDL demo, in order to be “offered” job seekers’ allowance plus vouchers (but no additional wage) for 8-hour days working for Transport for London in Stratford

The many London school children who took part in Olympics competitions in return for the promise of free Olympics tickets, only to find that the tickets never materialised

The East London residents who find that missiles have placed among the flats in which they live

The Leyton Marsh jogger whose favourite routewas built over to make way for a basketball practice area, ruining her and her neighbours’ green space when half a dozen sports stadia in the vicinity are empty and could have been used

The several hundred, if not thousands, of London tenants who have been evicted from their homes so that their landlords could cash in on an Olympics bonanza

Students set home early by UEL so that their rooms can be requisitioned for the games

Everyone who will be arriving at work late during the Olympics

And all my friends (wrong as they are for doing it) who will be leaving London rather than endure this mess

Pete, you’re right to emphasise those not being allowed to take holidays. I gather for example that a number of the large delivery firms have simply put a ban on any workers taking leave during either the Olympics or the Paralympics (i.e almost the entire summer holiday).

But I mean it about not leaving London; it’s going to be horrible here during the Games – and we need people to stay and protest.

Well, I can see that all of these are proper complaints that ought to be taken up, but not that they add up to a case against the Olympic Games. Accepting that the games will be taking place this side of the workers’ revolution, they will no doubt have their flaws, but I don’t plan to boycott food or television because it is produced under capitalist social relations.
Twenty years from now, when your son or daughter asks, what was it like when the Olympic Games came to London, I don’t plan to say I was out of the country. And besides, I’ve got my ticket….

James, in common with many people under capitalism I boycott certain products: not food in general, but food I judge has been so unethicallly produced as to be inedible; not television in general but certainly any print TV or news channels associated with Murdoch.

For me the Olympics are not a proxy for sport in general or even sport under capitalism. We don’t normally have police with guns, we don’t normally have gun emplacement in tower blocks, the Olympics aren’t capitalism as usual but something more intense.

The Games are, I’d say, an “experiment” – an attempt to remake Britain at the quickest pace possible in the direction of being a more purely capitalist and less social democratic country.

I’m not going to boycott the games: I’ll watch them (there are even particular athletes I’ll be delightedly cheering on as they do well) and I’ll protest, both against the excesses of the games, and against the games themselves